Language Patterns in Psychotic and Psychoneurotic Subjects

Abstract

CLINICALLY, psychological judgments about a person are made in l arge par t through evaluation of linguistic phenomena. The ideas and notions expressed by the patient in talking, or as a response to psychological tests, provide the material from which inferences are made as to his personality. The use of recording devices makes available a permanent record, not only of what the patient says but of the particular manner and form in which he expresses himself. In previous papers on the language of manic 1 and hysteric 2 patients we have tried to show that the form of expression, as well as the content, is psychologically significant. The present paper is an extension of this study of the formal characteristics of language to obsessive-compulsive and paranoid schizophrenic patients.The composition of the spoken language of an individual or group can be viewed as an equilibrium attained between two tendencies. Statistical properties, grammatical divisions, rules of syntax, and denotative word meaning impose an inherent stability and universality of structure. On the other hand, a certain freedom of selection in arrangement, choice of vocabulary, word frequency, and the connotative use of words appears to be the privilege of the individual. The final crystallization could be expected to reveal the pull of these opposing tendencies and to give a par¬ ticularizing quality to the language of an individual or group.In the present paper comparison is made of some of the formal characteristics of language as it is used by groups of individuals contrasting sharply in psychological make-up. The method used is that of tabulating categories of grammar and word frequencies. This method may at first sight appear as a naïve or sterile approach to the complexity of language. A few explanatory statements may perhaps indicate the direction of thought and general perspective that occasioned this counting of words.It is apparent that despite a relatively fixed range in the structural composition of language, different persons alter the arrangement and frequency of expression as much as the content of their communication. The person who draws attention to himself, or inserts himself into his discourse as a commentator, will shift the bal-

Electronic language: A study of word processing by emotionally disturbed children and adolescents in residential treatment

“…Another popular structural language comparison has been the degree of egocentricity, as measured by the frequency of self-referring pronouns (Maher et al, 1966). Previous studies have reported that normal subjects made more references to the self than did disorganized or schizophrenic subjects (Lorenz & Cobb, 1954;Mann, 1944). The more frequent self-references by normal subjects seemed to be a reflection of a greater interest in themselves and their own lives.…”

“…The type-token ratio (TTR) is obtained by dividing the total number of first-order tags by the total number of words tagged in each sample. Previous research has suggested that lower TIRs are associated with more pathological and cognitively disorganized subjects (Fairbanks, 1944;Lorenz & Cobb, 1954;Maher et al, 1966;Mann, 1944;Whitehorn & Zipf, 1943). Rounded to hundredths, the TIRs for the computer wordprocessing and handwritten texts were identical (.04).…”

Linguistic characteristics of neurotic, borderline and psychotic personality organization

“…The hypothesis is that there should be more conjunctions in the "NPO-language" as these patients are assumed to have the greatest ability to connect clauses and to let the stories of their lives flow freely in fluent speech. They wen earlier found in the investigations of Lorenz & Cobb (1953, 1954 as being particularly frequent in normals.…”

Crazy Talk

“…What is indeed striking, however, is the powerful influence of context on the use of personal reference for all subjects. This suggests that efforts of earlier investigators (e.g., Lorenz & Cobb, 1954;Mann, 1944;White, 1949) to characterize the schizophrenic speaker's use of personal pronouns should be viewed with caution. One must always ask: What was the utterance context?…”